Life Support: Escape to the Country by Nicki Edwards Page B

hour, Emma drove through the outskirts of Melbourne, stopping and starting at traffic lights and negotiating road works and constantly changing speed limits. She passed endless new subdivisions filled with matching houses sitting side by side on postage-stamp-size blocks of land. When was the city going to stop spreading? She remembered a time when these new suburbs had been nothing more than open paddocks and farmland. As she drove, she reflected that it was funny how she was already thinking of Birrangulla as home again. She hadn’t lived there in three years and yet it felt as though an invisible thread connecting her to the place was pulling her back. The landscape eventually changed as flat green paddocks opened up on either side of the road. She inhaled deeply, edged the car faster and activated the cruise control.
    The further north she drove, the more the grief welled up within her. Since the accident and Lleyton’s death, she had barely stopped long enough to miss him or mourn his loss. The affair had changed everything, and although they were separated and had been living separate lives for six months, it didn’t make his death any easier.
    Lleyton’s death had permanently snapped the cord that had held them together for the last three years, but by agreeing to keep his house, she’d be connected to him forever. She wasn’t sure that was what she wanted. Maybe it would’ve been better to sever all the ties so she could move on without feeling like he was always in her life. She should have told Andrew to keep the house himself. At least told him she’d make a decision about it after she’d seen it first. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She wouldn’t wallow in self-pity. Her life hadn’t worked out the way she’d planned when she’d moved to Melbourne with Lleyton, but that didn’t mean she had to escape the city and return to the country with her tail between her legs. She could return, head held high.
    Wriggling in her seat, Emma tried to get into a more comfortable driving position. She had at least ten more hours of driving ahead of her.
    She remembered Andrew’s final words to her as she left his office.
    “Good luck, Emma. I think you might find you actually like it back in Birrangulla.”
    *
    Emma drove all day, stopping every few hours to stretch her legs. Finally she saw the turn off toward Cowra and took the familiar exit. It took her a few utes and four-wheel drives passing in the opposite direction before she remembered to raise her two fingers off the steering wheel in the friendly Aussie country salute. She chuckled. No doubt as they passed her, they mocked the blonde city chick in her “Toorak tractor” who didn’t know the country road rules. If only they knew that deep down she was a country girl, on her way back home.
    She was less than an hour out of Birrangulla now and the closer she got the more tense she became. The last leg of the journey always seemed to take the longest. Dusk began to settle, ready to change itself into night. She needed to get to Lexton Downs before the inky blackness took over. She knew the roads fairly well, but once nightfall came, she might as well be driving blind. She stared at the gathering shadows and switched her headlights on. Driving carefully, she kept an eye open for kangaroos – they loved nothing more than to play kamikaze with cars in the twilight.
    Fifteen minutes later, as the sun was setting amidst a pastel pink and orange palette in the western sky, Emma arrived in Birrangulla. She slowed down, keeping a close eye on the speed limit. The last thing she needed was a speeding fine. She drove slowly down the hill, noting the houses that extended in all directions. Encircled by mountains that formed a backdrop to the town, it felt larger than she remembered.
    She smiled as she drove down the familiar wide streets. She passed the antique shop that had been there as long as she could remember and drove past the art gallery which sat